Rascals case in brief
In the beginning, in 1989, more than 90 children at the Little Rascals Day Care Center in Edenton, North Carolina, accused a total of 20 adults with 429 instances of sexual abuse over a three-year period. It may have all begun with one parent’s complaint about punishment given her child.
Among the alleged perpetrators: the sheriff and mayor. But prosecutors would charge only Robin Byrum, Darlene Harris, Elizabeth “Betsy” Kelly, Robert “Bob” Kelly, Willard Scott Privott, Shelley Stone and Dawn Wilson – the Edenton 7.
Along with sodomy and beatings, allegations included a baby killed with a handgun, a child being hung upside down from a tree and being set on fire and countless other fantastic incidents involving spaceships, hot air balloons, pirate ships and trained sharks.
By the time prosecutors dropped the last charges in 1997, Little Rascals had become North Carolina’s longest and most costly criminal trial. Prosecutors kept defendants jailed in hopes at least one would turn against their supposed co-conspirators. Remarkably, none did. Another shameful record: Five defendants had to wait longer to face their accusers in court than anyone else in North Carolina history.
Between 1991 and 1997, Ofra Bikel produced three extraordinary episodes on the Little Rascals case for the PBS series “Frontline.” Although “Innocence Lost” did not deter prosecutors, it exposed their tactics and fostered nationwide skepticism and dismay.
With each passing year, the absurdity of the Little Rascals charges has become more obvious. But no admission of error has ever come from prosecutors, police, interviewers or parents. This site is devoted to the issues raised by this case.
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Little Rascals Day Care Case
This Facebook page is an offshoot of littlerascalsdaycarecase.org, which addresses the wrongful prosecution of the Edenton Seven and other such victims.
Meanwhile in Edenton....
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Allies for our cause!
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The courts have a long history of capriciously pulling the rug out from under Junior's appeals, but maybe this time....
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Today’s random selection from the Little Rascals Day Care archives….
‘Why hadn’t any of the suspects copped a plea?’ he wondered
Feb. 2, 2018
“In August 1983 [Manhattan Beach, Calif., police chief Harry] Kuhlmeyer was presented with the McMartin Preschool case. Therapists and medical doctors had identified dozens of McMartin children as sexual abuse victims. Raymond Buckey, the sole male teacher at the preschool owned by his grandmother Virginia McMartin, was the primary suspect….
“Parents demanded Buckey’s immediate arrest, but Kuhlmeyer refused. His detectives could find no corroborating evidence.
“ ‘Why hadn’t any of the suspects copped a plea, why no mea culpas, no suicides? No one got drunk and bared his soul. If everything the kids said happened, it looked like the perfect crime. Even the Mafia has snitches,’ Kuhlmeyer said.
“The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office… drew up an arrest complaint about Buckey, but Kuhlmeyer refused to sign it. [The DA took the case to the grand jury, which routinely rubber stamps indictment requests.]
“Kuhlmeyer’s unpopular stance was vindicated seven years and $15 million in court costs later when two McMartin trials ended with no convictions.”
– From “Police chief during McMartin case refused to charge abuse suspects” by Kevin Cody in Easy Reader News (Jan. 31)
No such doubt, by either police or prosecutors, slowed the rush to put the Edenton Seven behind bars. The result, of course, was a disaster of McMartin dimensions.
Chief Kuhlmeyer died Jan. 12 in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 94.
Prosecutors turned on by nonexistent porn tape
April 30, 2012
“Prosecutors are reviewing pornographic videotapes seized in Montana…. A man identified as Willard Scott Privott appears wearing a pirate costume in a boat full of children, according to affidavits….
“Several children have testified (during Bob Kelly’s trial) that they were taken on boat trips. One 6-year-old boy testified that the boat was driven by a pirate….
“Bill Hart, an assistant attorney general prosecuting the case, said State Bureau of Investigation agents and Edenton Police Officer Brenda Toppin are reviewing the confiscated material….”
– From an Associated Press dispatch, Nov. 30, 1991
Needless to say, the Montana tape seizure was quickly revealed as a fool’s errand.
But how excited the prosecutors must have been by the prospect of finally finding actual evidence to support their multiplicity of charges!
I e-mailed the Montana stories to Scott Privott, who said that until now he had only heard word-of-mouth accounts.
He remembered Dorene Anna Stearns and David Lee Etheridge as no more than acquaintances in Edenton. “As far as her tales of seeing me in a movie, I wonder how even the state could believe that…. If a movie did exist and she saw it in ’87, why didn’t she report it to authorities back then?”
A DA unafraid ‘to go where the truth leads….’
March 25, 2013
“I really see us as sharing the goal of making sure this conviction rests on credible and substantial evidence. I’m going to go where the truth leads in this matter.”
– Jon David, district attorney in Brunswick, Columbus and Bladen counties,
responding to a request from the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence
to review DNA evidence in the case of Joseph Sledge
Mandy Locke’s account in the News & Observer will inspire confidence in neither the competence nor the good faith of North Carolina justice. Sledge, imprisoned 34 years for a double murder, has encountered unspeakable frustrations in his pursuit of exoneration.
Like Willie Grimes, however, Sledge is at last benefiting from a district attorney unimpaired with willful blindness toward his office’s past failures.
If the Edenton Seven are ever able to achieve true exoneration from the state, it likely won’t be with the acquiescence of the prosecutors, much less their assistance.
Mondale Act set up bonanza for therapists
Aug. 1, 2012
“Congress’s well-intentioned but misguided Mondale Act (the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, CAPTA), signed into law by Richard Nixon in 1974, provided impetus to prosecute alleged crimes against children.
“First, it provided immunity to reporters of abuse, thereby unleashing an unlimited supply of unsubstantiated charges.
“Second, it provided funds to permit so-called victims to receive state-financed therapy immediately, even prior to any adjudication.
“Thus, the victims in Edenton received extensive counseling, at government expense, for ‘abuse’ that never occurred. Four ‘sex therapists’ got all that business and received many thousands of dollars in reimbursement. They had no motivation to suppose those charges might be bogus.”
– From “Sexual Liberation: The Scandal of Christendom” by Raymond J. Lawrence (2007)